I tell parents every year at open house that the art of teaching is creating lessons that are so engaging for students that the students are willing to complete the task even if they don’t like what they are doing. Writing is a great example of this. Many students do not enjoy writing because it takes a long time, it requires them to think, it doesn’t have A right answer,there are many rules, etc. However, there aren’t many skills more important for them to learn, so I am always on the lookout for good writing prompts and for resources that can be turned into meaningful, engaging writing prompts.

This Edutopia piece is so right. We are often tired and bust, so we fail to take the time to let parents know when their children do what they are supposed to do. We also get frustrated with students and only call he with bad news. By starting with good news before the need to call with bad news, parents feel that we like their child and are will be quicker to help us out.

This short and easy to read article provides some simple things to remember about and to try with our tween students. I am really working on the idea of formative assessment this year. The transition to semester grades is a little daunting because the kids are going to have so many grades by the end of 18 weeks if I put a GRADE in the grade book for every assignment that they do. Today, I met with each child as he/she finished a short assignment to talk quickly about the errors on his/her paper. Even though many of the kids were making the same mistake, I wanted to see if the kids got more out of the one on one explanation of errors. We’ll see…

“Of all the states of matter in the known universe, tweens most closely resemble liquid.” This is a quotation from the article, and I love the metaphor.